Comments on: Why I May Never Buy a Toyota

By: Book Of Little Deviants « Advergame.fr

Book Of Little Deviants « Advergame.fr — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:05:06 +0000

[...] de Toyota, lancée en juin dernier pour promouvoir son modèle Scion, a soulevé de nombreuses interrogations, autant pour ses spots publicitaires relativement violents diffusés dans les cinémas en première [...]

By: Kenny

Kenny — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 11:48:53 +0000

Toyota is trying to market the Scion line towards younger kids, since the “Toyota” nameplate has an older, stodgier image. They want to make kids think Scion is a cool alternative to Toyota, not an extension of the Toyota brand.

Please don’t hold that marketing directly against Toyota, as it’s an ad for Scion.

Your distaste for the ad might mean you’re now part of the “old fuddy duddy” crowd, which is a bitter pill to swallow for us all.

:-)

By: Mach

Mach — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 20:32:41 +0000

Booomie, Toyotas are just as American as Fords, and in a few short years Toyota will employ more people in the United States than Ford. Do some research and see for yourself. I am a bit biased since they support me and my family as I am a proud Toyota employee. So are the other 7,000 people that work with me every day just at my plant alone(one of many in the US). I don’t like this ad, but it shouldn’t be a jumping off point into calling Toyota non-American. Yes, the name is foreign but so was Ford, Chrysler, and Chevrolet when those immigrants came to this country. Look into a Ford Mustang closely before buying one. Some of them have only about 65% US-sourced parts. Most Camrys have over 80%. Honda is building a new plant in Indiana. Toyota is building a new plant in Mississippi, and has just finished a new plant in Texas. Where are GM, Ford, and Chrysler’s new plants going in? They’re reducing capacity and cutting jobs in the US, and building shiny new plants in Mexico and South America. The profit from a “Japanese” purchase doesn’t go to Japan, it gets reinvested here in the States. The “profit” on a big-3 car goes to opening a plant somewhere down south (thanks to NAFTA). There are no longer Japanese or American car companies, they’re all global companies with global agendas. I prefer to stay loyal to a company that is investing in my backyard no matter what name is on the building.

By: CTDeLude

CTDeLude — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:17:53 +0000

Personally don’t care for the commercials either but Toyota is the best brand out there right now hands down. I wouldn’t buy any other brand cept for Lexus, which is Toyota.

Besides, my entire family has managed to get great deals from them. So its got that working for it too.

By: boomie

boomie — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:45:28 +0000

You should be buying American cars, like a Ford Mustang, hybrid Edge or zero pollutant Focus. Ford beats out Toyota every single time.
Complain. All you have is your voice. Complain to the theater, send emails to the advertising department of Toyota. Tell them you are boycotting their products. Speak up. Let your voice be heard and complain, complain, complain.

By: Dani @ Living Behind the Curve

Dani @ Living Behind the Curve — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 23:03:09 +0000

What is even more disturbing to me than the original commercial is the text on the website: “Send the Sheeple from the streets and find them in the highrises. Knock the stuffing out of them and collect their blood. It can be used to your benefit. Turn that awful bleating into awesome bleeding.”

Now, if I had run across this game myself on line, I probably would have thought “heh. cool.”. (I’m a big fan of “5 Minutes to Kill Yourself”.) All that ran through my head now, however, was “So let me get this straight: an grotesque ad played before a movie aimed at children was not only inappropriate but also promoted an online game where the object is to collect people’s blood…”

You might want to think about sending a letter or protest to your local theater — from what I’ve read online, a number of theaters have refused to run the ad before HP. Toyota is creepy, yeah, but so is the guy that didn’t pull it from the lineup before showing it a bunch of kids.

By: Stephanie @ PoorerThanYou

Stephanie @ PoorerThanYou — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 18:10:38 +0000

I’m with you here. When I saw this ad before the Harry Potter movie, it was the second time I’d seen it, so I knew that I didn’t want to see it. I’m not adverse to violence (my favorite movie in the whole world is Terminator 2!), but something about the Little Deviants creeps me out beyond words. After the commercial was done, I yelled out “And that’s why I’m never buying a Scion,” and the whole row of people behind me laughed at me…

but I was only half joking.

By: Nate

Nate — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 15:11:40 +0000

The first time I saw those commercials I had no idea what the heck they were advertising for. In the end I was like “A toyota? Are you kidding me” What the heck did all that violence have to do with a toyota…… way to take a stand.. drive Nissan!

By: mbhunter

mbhunter — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 03:23:18 +0000

I felt the same way with the Lord of the Rings movies. Didn’t really get a lot of the story line but my wife did because she’s read the books many times.

By: MoneyNing

MoneyNing — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 17:39:54 +0000

Lazy: I know exactly what you mean since I am in the exact same situation!!!

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:14:11 +0000

It’s nice to call her “my wife.” It’s especially better to type it since I don’t have to worry about an accent mark in fiancée. At last I can set my keyboard back to normal.

By: Josh Samarin

Josh Samarin — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:44:28 +0000

It is bizarre, as is the video game they created over at littledeviant.com. Apparently they’re planning to partner with a few metal bands to promote the deviant theme.

It’s just marketing, something to make the scion look a bit more hip and rebellious and get people talking. I agree they should be careful who they target this at, though. Personally, I’m still loving my Yaris :)

By: RateLadder.com

RateLadder.com — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:23:01 +0000

How does it feel to call her “my wife”?

By: MoneyNing

MoneyNing — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 02:48:04 +0000

I really did not get the commercial when I saw it myself in the movies. It didn’t seem like it had anything to do with cars and I guess they are getting exactly what they wanted which is people talking about it.

By: Amber Yount

Amber Yount — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:25:09 +0000

Hmm they didnt play that ad when I went to our local HP showing

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:05 +0000

Baz L – I’m considering it. It’s why I said “may.”

I think it goes far beyond creepy. I’ve seen a number of creepy ads in the past. I can’t think of too many companies that say “We want to be known as the company that says it’s okay to gruesomely murder innocent people.”

If I expressed such an attitude on this blog, I would expect my readers to go elsewhere. Just yesterday, I was “loosely attacked” (perhaps “strongly questioned” is a better phrase) for owning an SUV and harming the environment even though 1) the SUV gets very little use 2) when it was bought it was necessary for my wife to deliver medical care to people when there were storms in the Northeast.

By: Baz L

Baz L — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:42:25 +0000

So because they used some creepy ads, you’re going to put an X an the entire company?

By: The Financial Blogger

The Financial Blogger — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:42:14 +0000

I tend to agree that these kind of adds should not be shown before Harry Potter or any other movies that may interest young kids.

White watching the coming on HD-DVD of Moggli by Disney might be damn boring, at least, nobody will be offended by it!

I prefer Mazda over Toyota anyway ;-)

By: Lazy Man

Lazy Man — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:18:47 +0000

I think Tom and Jerry always survived the decapitation or floated up into a nice fluffy cloud in heaven. Also Tom was the instigator and the victim. The Sheeple are the innocent victims having done nothing to instigate the attack.

And again, that’s the source of the entertainment, not an advertisement of a product.

By: Baz L

Baz L — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:03:00 +0000

I must say the ad is a bit disturbing, but I like it, lol. But I do see where it may be some what inappropriate for kids. If you analyze it, it’s just the combination of things that make it (for lack of a better word…actually, that’s the perfect word) creepy.

Many a head has been ripped off of stuff before and they are usually fine for kids. Come on now, we know that. Even in the days of Tom and Jerry, heads would often roll.

It’s the fact that they aren’t the normal 2D cartoons and the dark realistic background that adds a touch of realism to it that NOW makes decapitation seem a bit too close to reality. There’s no blood in the ad, the sheep aren’t dead, their parts are just rearranged.

We all know that if this ad featured some exploding smiley faced, flat, 2 dimensional ducks we wouldn’t have this problem.

I’m not defending the ad, because as a 25 yr/old dude, it did make me shiver a lil’ lol. But this is nothing we haven’t seen before, it’s just the combination makes it weird.

Now as the Toyota vs. Nissan thing….that’s a completely different story altogether. Nissan’s suspension sucks. I’m sorry, it does. Give me a good old Camry every day of the week.